Living life in the carpool lane..

M loves to draw with crayons and markers.  She has a nice little collection of coloring books, and because I craft, she has an endless supply of scrap paper to play with..

But, she loves writing on the wall.

I don’t know what it is, but she loves writing on that wall.  I don’t know if it’s the bumpy texture, or the fact that she can stand up while writing, or the novelty of it all… I really don’t know.  But she loves doing it.

Now, we live in an apartment, so writing on the wall isn’t the best idea.  We don’t own the walls, and I would hate to lose our deposit due to a toddler’s drawing habit when we decide to finally move out..

I remembered my brother having the same love of drawing on the walls in our home when we were younger.  For months, we lived in a museum of mural art, all from my little brother.  He drew on as many walls as he could, as big and as elaborated as he wanted.  It’s no wonder my brother grew up to be an artist of sorts… who saw that coming??

My mom tried to curb the habit (and save the walls) by taping a sheet of paper to the wall and have him draw on that instead.  I vaguely remember her cutting open a brown paper bag and taping it to the wall.  However, my brother was, and still is, smarter than the average bear, and he figured out how to lift off the tape and draw UNDERNEATH the paper.

Since we owned the house, my mother decided to just let him have the artistic freedom and when we went on a 3-month vacation to the Philippines, my dad (who was left behind since no work would allow a 3-month vacation!) painted over the walls.  Luckily, when we came back, my brothers drawing habits had matured and he stuck to paper..

Seeing that my daughter looks to be following the footsteps of her Godfather (my brother), I decided that I will try to distract her with paper on the wall.

I have a large roll of shipping wrap from Scotch.  It was from last years attempt to wrap Christmas papers “artistically.”    It’s the perfect size and I can make it as long as I wanted..

I tried a small piece on the wall just to see how it would go..

She actually enjoys it very much.  And since this picture was taken, I’ve replaced the paper with a much longer one and she enjoys that a lot too.

While it contains MOST of the coloring onto the paper, there are times where she still wants to test her boundaries and ventures onto the wall.  Constant reminders to stay on the paper are heard on a daily basis, but I think it could be getting better.

What I also love about the paper on the wall is that it almost serves as a sort of “chalkboard.”  She asks me to draw certain things, and I can do so for her almost like a teacher.   I have been able to use the paper to show her how to spell out certain words.  I’ve showed her the difference between left and right, up and down.  We’ve reviewed her shapes, numbers, letters.. all those basics..

It’s actually really fun!

Just a few pointers:  We use painters tape to keep the paper on the wall so we don’t do too much damage.  And a baby wipe immediately after the marker hits the wall does wonders in getting the marker ink off..